This is the world-famous Kailasa temple at Ellora and let's look objectively into who could have built this amazing structure. By the end of this, I hope you will agree with me that our history might be completely wrong and that this temple was built by a very advanced civilization.
What is So Special About Kailasa Temple?
This temple was not built by laying down stone blocks, but rather by carving an entire mountain. This is the only instance in the world in which a mountain was cut from the top to make a structure. The rock was cut from the front and sculpted as they went along in all the other temples and caves, including in Ellora and the rest of the world.
The entire globe has employed a rock cutting technique known as "cut-in monolith," but the Kailasa temple is the only one that has utilised the inverse technique known as "cut-out monolith."
To see why this rock cutting technique is so different, let's look at this pillar that is over 100 feet tall. See how small human beings look when compared to this pillar.
Normally, to create such a huge pillar, it would take years of work, carving accurately on the huge rock. However, this pillar was formed by scooping out all of the mountains around it. You can imagine how much rock has been removed to make this pillar. Historians and archaeologists are perplexed by the massive amount of rock taken in this temple.
Archaeologists confirm that over 400,000 tons of rock had to be scooped out, which would have taken not years, but centuries of human labour. Historians have no such record of a monstrous task, and they think that it was built in less than 18 years.
Let us do simple maths and see if historians could be right. We are going to assume that people worked every day for 18 years and for 12 hours straight with no breaks at all. We are here going to ignore rainy days, festivals, and wartime and assume that people worked like robots ceaselessly. We are also going to ignore the time taken to create intricate carvings and complex engineering design and planning and just focus on the removal of rock.
IMPOSSIBLE!!?!
Emperor Aurangzeb wanted to destroy the mere presence of this structure and so, had allocated this work to over 1000 men. They worked day and night for over three years, a long time but failed to bring this sanctuary down, they could only deform a few of the idols present inside the temple.
This wonder can be compared to the pyramids. Another Muslim sovereign needed to deconstruct the pyramids but was unsuccessful. Presently, that’s quite strange, don't you think?
The Speculations About the Temple
All of These can seem like mere theories for now and it will always be a topic of speculation unless and until we find proofs and answers for the questions that are commonly asked and they are valid even soo. Take a look at a few of those :
The Actual dates of carving of the Kailash temple are still in question.
The temple is carved from the whole mountainside, and that too from bottom to top. This was quite new then among all the temples.
The next BIG!! Speculation is about the rubble as to where it was disposed. A temple of this voluminosity certainly would have a lot of rubble. And nowhere near the temple, it was found that the rubble was disposed of. Some say it was used to build some other structure, but no proof of any structure built from the same stone has been found.
The roofs of the temples are speculation in themselves. The intricate carvings even on the roofs are marvellous considering the fact that the temple itself was carved out of a single mountain that too from top to bottom; there would be no chance to meticulously plan the structure on the go. Arranging the errors if any by adding stones but this was not the case. The planning committee on this temple have done an extra-terrestrial job one can say.
Some scholars believe that a vast underground civilisation once existed underneath these caverns.
The Ellora caverns have many deep tunnels and tight corridors. They can be seen from the outside, but after about 10 feet, they become too narrow for a human to enter. The cave guard warned us that there are numerous tunnels and that access to many of them is now restricted. At the entrance to the caves with such passages, you can notice bars and locks.
What was the use of all these tunnels and small passages? Those small tunnels are correctly built for a reason. If humans are unable to enter those passages, how did they construct them and for what purpose? Is it possible to have a concealed underground city? Was this it?
We cannot answer anything for sure but with research and development in archaeology, we might be able to completely appreciate whoever it was that built this amazing sculpture.
Edited By: Nidhi Jha
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